Gun Owners Decry Legislation

In gun stores and firearms factories, reaction to the legislature's gun-control package Wednesday was swift and pointed.

Manufacturers raised the specter of leaving Connecticut, and customers at guns shops and outfitters' stores throughout the state feared that legislation the General Assembly was poised to enact in reaction to the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown would open the door to further limits on gun ownership.

Among the hundreds of people flocking to gun stores Wednesday to buy semiautomatic weapons or 30-round magazines that would be banned were two police officers who worked for different departments.

Both officers said they would carry the weapons on patrol. One said that his agency didn't have enough AR-15s to go around. Both agreed to talk on the condition of anonymity.

"You don't want to be outgunned, that was my reason," one of the officers said as he left a Newington gun shop. "The handgun just doesn't do it."

The officer was reluctant to comment on the legislation before the General Assembly.

"I work close to Newtown," he said. "A lot of people were affected by it. You can't stop a crazy person."

Although the gun-rights and gun-control battle lines were sharply etched, there was a middle ground.

"I can see the purpose for (the limits on) magazines," said an older man leaving Blue Trail Rifle Range in Wallingford after taking target practice.

Paul Regish, 50, of East Hartford, joined dozens of others on a bus to the Capitol from Cabela's sporting goods store in East Hartford "to protest these new gun laws."

Regish said he does support some new gun-control initiatives, such as certain limits on ammunition purchases.

"I don't think anybody should be able to go into a store and buy ammunition, there has to be a reason," Regish said. "They can tighten up a few things."

But he disagrees with the majority of what the legislature was set to adopt.

"Law-abiding citizens that are sportsmen, hunters, why take away from us?" he said. "What I'm afraid of is it's not going to stop here."

Regish said he understands lawmakers' reaction to the searing pain of the families who lost children at Sandy Hook and the graphic testimony about gunman Adam Lanza's methodical massacre.

Gun and ammunition-magazine makers said Wednesday that they were still not sure of the full effect of Connecticut's gun-control bill, adding that they were uncertain whether they would keep their companies in the state.

Three pro-gun advocates went to the Capitol press room Wednesday and said that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's repeated public assurances that they were still welcome in Connecticut were meaningless.

"His assurances mean nothing to me,'' said Mark Malkowski of Stag Arms, a rifle manufacturing company that has 200 employees in New Britain.

Jonathan Scalise, founder, owner and president of Ammunition Storage Components, said he could not say whether his firm, which has 150 employees in New Britain, would be operating in Connecticut one year from now. The firm makes magazines that can hold 30 bullets, as well as 20 rounds and 40 rounds. The workers make the clips for both rifles and pistols.

Lanza, who fired 154 rounds in about four minutes, was using 30-round magazines when he killed 20 children and six women inside the Sandy Hook school on Dec. 14. He then shot and killed himself as police were approaching the school. He shot and killed his mother with a conventional rifle as she slept in bed at home before setting out to the school.

Scalise said the manufacturers were not involved in the final negotiations on the bill that Malloy has pledged to sign.

"There's a tremendous lack of transparency,'' Scalise said in the Capitol press room. "We can't have a public hearing. We have to rush this through.''

Some gun-rights supporters did feel that their movement had gained traction at the legislature.

"They heard a lot of people, which was good,'' said Chris Fields, founder of King33 Training, a self-defense training facility in Southington.

"I don't think that everybody's efforts fell on deaf ears whatsoever," he said. "It's not so much a win …they listened to us and they understand what's good for us. So there is some consideration in there."

He noted that lawmakers could have gone further.

"They could have gone after concealed carry and said we're not allowed to carry in the street. They could have gone after confiscation. … The fact that we're not disarmed is because our voices were heard."

Guns shops and sporting goods stores helped drum up anti-gun control activism throughout the day Wednesday.

Two buses carrying 110 gun-rights supporters left Cabela's at 8:30 a.m., and a total of four buses continued ferrying supporters to the Capitol every 15 minutes.

Butch Kolashuk, 65, of Waterford, said he has owned guns for "as long as I can remember," and is a member of the National Rifle Association. A target shooter, Kolashuk said he owns a variety of weapons, including a .32-caliber Winchester rifle, a shotgun and handguns.